


How It Begins

by Valmouth



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Stargate Atlantis AU, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Superhero AU (vaguely Batman-esque). Rodney should have known things were about to change when the prodigal son came home to Sheppard Industries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to Stargate Atlantis, to the derivative Batman universe, or to any other possible references or concepts used herein. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from it.

By the time John Sheppard agrees to sit in on the family business, Rodney’s just a name on a role of employees somewhere.

Actually, he’s less than that. He’s stuck in a cheerless, featureless sub-basement storage space that stretches around him like a badly lit carpark, surrounded by the debris and failure of his ten year stint with Sheppard Industries. All the plans and schemes he’s had for bringing advancement to the world lie buried beneath tons of cement, steel and gleaming glass skyscraper.

In the circumstances, the fact that John Sheppard comes to find him there is a little disturbing.

Rodney doesn’t place him at first sight, doesn’t know who this guy with the unmanagable hair and lazy drawl is. Doesn’t recognise Sheppard in the least, because Patrick Sheppard was an aggressive, burly man with thick shoulders and a discontented mouth and his eldest son is anything but.

“What did you do to wind up here?” Rodney asks.

John Sheppard’s smirk is charming, and his answer is evasive.

He pokes around restlessly, and asks silly questions with obvious answers, and finally he mooches off to find something that’s shinier.

Namely, his brother’s PA.

He should have known, Rodney thinks later on, he should have figured it out.

At first, there’s just a sharing of space. It’s not like David Sheppard actually makes the research department redundant. Sheppard Industries has its fingers in quite a few pies, particularly to do with power generation and renewable energy. They, however, are not in Rodney’s fields of expertise.

Rodney oversees the heads of research teams who annoy him but he still has a job and the work isn’t bad. Just boring. There’s a lot of it to do. He doesn’t have the time to babysit brainless millionaires.

“How’s John fitting in?” Elizabeth asks him after an upper management meeting.

“I don’t know who thought sticking a man like that in my department was a good idea,” Rodney snaps, “He’s clearly useless. There’s got to be somewhere else you can put him.”

Elizabeth raises her eyebrows. “Frankly, he doesn’t need to be put anywhere, but he asked for Applied Sciences.”

Rodney doesn’t know what to say to that.

He goes back to find Sheppard sitting at the bare old desk in one corner, feet up and chair tipped back, making paper planes.

Classic models are littered all around him and he smirks when Rodney comes in, but his hands never stop moving.

“Hiya, Rodney,” he says, “Anything interesting happening today?”

He’s dressed in an expensive suit with his shirt collar open and no tie. His hair is still sticking up every which way and he’s got a shadowy hint of stubble. He looks, in the battered, unpainted industrial office surroundings, like an ad for designer suits.

“Why are you here?” Rodney demands.

“Nowhere else to be,” John shrugs, and throws a paper plane at the opposite wall.

It skews badly off-course, loops dizzily, and manages to land on Rodney’s desk. Without any reaction whatsoever, Sheppard picks up another square of paper and starts folding.

“I just spoke to Elizabeth Weir. She says you asked to work here.”

Rodney’s not actually accusing John Sheppard of anything, mostly because there’s nothing to accuse him of. For all Rodney knows, Sheppard decided he wanted some sort of nominal work, looked through a list of departments, and thought Science would be cooler than Accounts.

“Thought there’d be more excitement,” Sheppard says, as if reading his mind. He lifts his arm and tosses the next plane. It hits the wall this time, but Sheppard’s mouth twitches down at the corner and he reaches for yet another square of paper. “You know, I thought R & D would have more cool stuff.”

“What makes you think that? Scientific research is highly methodical and precise. We don’t blow things up for no reason.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“So why are you still here?”

“I told you, Rodney, I don’t have anywhere else to be today.”

Rodney gets another smirk and it makes his hackles rise. “That’s Dr. McKay and would you stop wasting all my paper? Do you know how much paperwork I have to fill in to requisition that?”

“One online form, copy to archive and copy to Stores,” Sheppard recites, as if it bores him to tears and he doesn’t have to think about it.

He throws the next plane and this time, it performs the same dizzying loop as the first one. And lands right on Rodney’s desk. Again.

Rodney picks it up and bins it. But he remembers what Elizabeth told him and he tries to make an effort, to find some sort of common ground- “What were you doing before you came back here?”

“I was in the Air Force.”

Rodney can’t imagine anyone who looks less likely to choose military deprivation than John Sheppard. Or less likely to obey orders.

Later he’ll hear he isn’t entirely wrong. John Sheppard was shafted out of active combat for being a loose cannon, and for three separate occasions of flying unsanctioned missions, the last one against direct orders.

At the time, it doesn’t make much difference. Rodney assumes Sheppard was just another grunt.

“For someone who worked in the Air Force, you have no concept of aerodynamics,” he says, watching as yet another paper plane crashes onto his desk.

He catches the tail end of some sort of hurt expression on Sheppard’s face, but by the time he turns his head to look, all he gets is vacuous amiability.

He gives up entirely. There’s nothing there to work with and Sheppard, clearly, is not worth his time and effort.

For a week after that conversation, Sheppard doesn’t come down to find him. Rodney hears third-hand stories about wild nights on the town, parties, outrageous behaviour. He hears that Sheppard whisked his brother’s PA away in the middle of the day, drove her to the local airfield and took her flying.

“He didn’t even have his own plane,” someone gushes, “So he looked around until he saw one he liked, and bought it right there.”

“He can fly?” is all Rodney thinks of asking.

“He was a pilot in the Air Force.”

Rodney thinks of paper planes looping dizzily through the air to land on his desk.

John Sheppard becomes marginally more interesting after that, but not by much, and even that glamour fades by the end of the week, which is when he turns up again. Restless and heavy-eyed, looking like he’s not had enough sleep.

He drops down into the squeaky chair that goes with his bare desk in the corner and yawns his way through a half-sarcastic, half-amused greeting.

“Late night?”

“Just woke up.”

“It’s almost noon,” Rodney protests.

Sheppard smirks, and it looks... odd. Like it’s mechanical. Fake. “Was there something urgent you wanted me for, Rodney?”

Rodney rolls his eyes and lets the corner of his mouth pull down as a sign of his answer. Then he turns away and busies himself with the latest report. When he looks up, half an hour later, Sheppard has his phone out and is clearly doing something on it.

And for once, Sheppard is absolutely still, frowning slightly in concentration, and there is something about the set of his shoulders that makes Rodney’s spine straighten, makes him look around involuntarily. Makes the hair on the back of his neck rise.

A tiny news item on page two of the Daily Chronicle says that the police received a bizarre tip-off for a drugs factory, and went in to find the manufacturers already handcuffed and waiting for them. The article wonders if it wasn’t a frame up.

The online celebrity tabloids, however, have a tiny news article that says a scion of the House of Sheppard was spotted celebrating something at a trendy new nightclub. Apparently this scion was in a good enough mood to ply everybody in the place with champagne.

Rodney assumes that the scion in question is John, since David Sheppard runs Sheppard Industries and has a boring wife, two equally boring children, and only attends elite social functions in the safe bosom of his boring circle of business acquaintances.

Rodney also assumes that the nightclub incident explains why Sheppard is still half-asleep at eleven in the morning.

He tells himself he should never have assumed. He should have known better. Scientific research is not about connecting dots at random and hoping nothing explodes. It’s precise, it’s logical, and it’s built on fact.

The fact is that he is only one in a long line of people who assume things. The fact is that Sheppard is not hung-over that morning, though he is sleep-deprived. The fact is that Rodney’s old schematic blueprints are just slightly ruffled, his old prototypes are just slightly less dusty than they were before, and there are signs that someone’s been at his laptop while he’s been away. It’s a fraction of an inch too far to the right, its screen a fraction of an inch pushed back too much.

But he’s written at least half the security system algorithms himself.

The quiet little program running constantly in the background tells him that his laptop has been accessed, that there have been unauthorised breaches into files of no particular importance to anyone in the building, and that it happened when he was away from his desk for precisely four hours one afternoon.

He lays his trap quietly and quickly and catches his prey late on a Thursday evening.

John Sheppard is not an ad for designer suits this evening. He’s dressed in utilitarian black, with military boots, and this time he offers nothing like a smirk when he sees Rodney. If anything, his mouth goes thin and his jaw tenses.

“Since you’re here,” he says grimly, “You can help.”

“What exactly am I helping?” Rodney challenges, and as always his imagination gets the better of him, “No, wait, don’t tell me. You’re stealing research from your own company to- what? Sell down at the next trendy nightclub?”

Sheppard rolls his eyes. “I need access to information. Someone is selling research but it’s not me. Is there anyone else who’s accessed your work in the last couple of days?”

“Yes,” Rodney exclaims, waving his hands, “You!”

“Me? I don’t even understand your files,” Sheppard growls, “Who else?”

“I don’t know. How do I know? I thought you...”

“It wasn’t me. Think! Who else came in here?”

But Rodney’s brain is working two steps sideways, and it occurs to him that he still doesn’t know why John Sheppard is so interested in his work. He asks him, and Sheppard says he’s seen the working prototype of a souped-up MP7.

“Where?”

“You don’t need to know,” Sheppard says, “It’s better for you that you don’t. Do you know who saw your files?”

“How do you know it’s got anything to do with my files? Everyone’s reworking the Personal Defence Weapons on the market; it’s big business for military contractors. Maybe it’s...”

“Rodney,” Sheppard says, “I saw your blueprints. I saw the prototype. They match. Now do you know or not?”

Something about the way he says it makes Rodney reach for his laptop. “I don’t,” he says tightly, “But I can find out.”

“How?”

Rodney shoots him an annoyed glance. “Security cameras. Simple but efficient. And we have them on the corridor outside.”

John’s brow furrows. “Don’t you need clearance to access those?”

Rodney’s doesn't deign that with an answer. He pulls up the feed from the day in question and Sheppard swears softly as a pretty woman casts a nervous glance back over her shoulder before walking into the lab.

“Neera,” he sighs.

And Rodney recognises her as David Sheppard’s PA.

He thinks he should have known, and in hindsight, it’s almost impossible to imagine that it works out any other way.

It turns out that Sheppard’s been indulging himself in little acts of reckless vigilantism around the City, hand-in-glove with a woman called Teyla and a police lieutenant called Ford.

Rodney doesn’t need to know these details, and he tells Sheppard that on the very first evening, but by the morning he can’t stand not knowing, especially not when Sheppard doesn’t turn up for ‘work’. There’s no word and no sign, and though Rodney goes through a comprehensive online trawl for information, he can’t find any news.

In the end he cracks, and it’s no big deal to find out where Sheppard lives. Actually, everyone knows where Sheppard lives. Sheppard lives in his father’s mansion – in the _family_ mansion, built in the early twentieth century to look like it was built in the late nineteenth century – and there are rumours about what he does with all the spare room he’s got.

Rodney’s reasonably sure that no one would imagine that the ballroom is now a training room and gym, that a sitting room doubles as a gun range and a spare bedroom is now an incident room.

The security gate isn’t manned, there’s no surveillance that Rodney can spot, and by the time he gets to the front door he’s fuming.

Teyla opens the door to him and he glares at her suspiciously and asks where Sheppard is.

“John,” she says cautiously, “Is sleeping at the moment.”

“Oh God,” Rodney says, “He’s been injured, hasn’t he? How badly? Is he bleeding? Is he conscious? Did you call a doctor?”

“Perhaps you should come in,” Teyla says, looking winded but a little amused.

He steps in and his life changes.

John isn’t injured. Is actually asleep. But he comes down in a thin black tshirt with short sleeves and there’s an ugly mottled bruise all the way up his right arm.

“Some guy decided he wanted my gun,” Sheppard jokes, “He didn’t want to wait for me to put it down first.”

Rodney puts down the ancient old gym bag he’s hefting. It’s not his bag; it’s just been in his lab for as long as he can remember, and he thinks vaguely it once belonged to one of his former research assistants, back when he was first hired to help Sheppard Industries corner the market on wildly ambitious high-end technology. But however he’s acquired it, it serves its purpose that day.

“Here,” he says, and starts to unload the bag’s contents, “Try this on.”

Sheppard, in sweatpants and tshirt, stares sceptically at the body suit Rodney’s shaking impatiently at him.

“What the hell is this?”

“A chance to save your stupid life,” Rodney snaps.

John takes it without another protest, curious in spite of himself.

“Armour plating, webbing, insulation. Hell, this is... now wait a second, this stuff here feels like a ballistics vest.”

Rodney rolls his eyes. “Of course it is. It’s a little out of date considering some of the ammunition available to the criminal underworld, but it should keep most types of old school ammunition from making holes in you. The rest is a fine mesh that should help with knifes. I say should, because we designed this baby eight years ago. Things have changed since then but it’s certainly better than hoping that all the bad guys will have the decency to aim for your kevlar vest. Speaking of which, here. You’ll want this if someone’s waving around a MP7.”

He hands over the P-90 without any fanfare, and takes a little vindictive satisfaction in seeing Sheppard look like he’s not sure whether to drop it or hug it.

“I have not seen one of these before,” Teyla comments, and comes closer to heft the suit and run a finger over the PDW. “Where did you get this?”

Rodney raises his eyebrows at Sheppard, who starts to smirk.

This time, the smirk isn’t all white teeth and masks, it’s wicked. And very annoying. Rodney answers with a crooked grin of his own.

And that’s roughly when he becomes their technology person.

Aiden Ford ambles in around eight that evening, and stares at Rodney with a kind of squinty-eyed sullenness that reminds Rodney of high school and kid siblings, but when the man turns back to Sheppard, he’s confident and clearly capable.

Rodney thinks Teyla’s an informant of some kind until he sees her fight. She knocks Sheppard to the floor four times in three minutes, but each time Sheppard gets back up again. He’s breathing hard, and she’s only broken a sweat, and of the two, Rodney realises that Teyla’s the actual martial artist. John’s just stubborn with good reflexes.

He sits on the sidelines with a mug of coffee that’s more expensive than his rent and he doodles in a little sketchpad he finds on the kitchen counter.

John’s been writing a grocery list of some kind but that’s clearly unimportant. Dormant bits of Rodney’s brain come alive that evening, and beneath his fingers he starts churning out familiar-unfamiliar designs. New ones and old ones, pouring out in notes and sketches and reminders to himself. They don’t feel as wildly ambitious as they used to, ten years ago, until he looks at them – really _looks_ – and realises that to make what he’s got is so far out of the realm of what they’re doing that it’s overkill.

But at least four of his ideas are viable, and the only thing that breaks him out of the reverie is that Sheppard appears at his elbow, dressed in black, to say they’re heading out.

Rodney blinks at him until comprehension dawns, and because he’s grappling with the disconnection he notices what’s there rather what he expects to see. Sheppard’s a little bulkier than before, and with a start, Rodney realises he’s wearing the suit beneath his clothes.

“I hope that works,” Rodney says inanely.

The corners of Sheppard’s mouth twist up.

It’s the single most genuine, simple, intimate expression Rodney’s seen yet on his face.

“I hope so too,” Sheppard says lightly.

Rodney hauls himself to his feet and tucks the borrowed sketchbook under his arm as a matter of course. Teyla and Ford are hovering by the back door, both also in black, and Ford’s holding the P-90 like he’s just waiting for the chance to use it. They’re both only wearing bulletproof vests.

It reminds Rodney painfully that they’re maybe going into the same danger as Sheppard, and they have less protection.

“I don’t have suits for you two,” he says, frowning as he looks between Teyla and Ford.

“Don’t worry, Doc,” Ford grins, “We can look after ourselves.”

Sheppard walks in after lunch the next morning, when Rodney’s seriously contemplating just driving over to find out whether anyone’s made it out alive.

“The suit works,” Sheppard announces proudly, and then, “Dr. McKay. How do you feel about working on commissions in your spare time?”

“My PhDs were not in combat uniform and weapons design,” Rodney huffs.

“But you’ll do it,” Sheppard interprets confidently.

Rodney rolls his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make promises.”

It takes Rodney six weeks to create two more suits. He has to order the components, and given the situation, he doesn’t want to buy them through Sheppard Industries' accounts. John Sheppard gives him a personal credit card and tells him to go nuts.

He gets his parts, but since he’s been told not to stint on the pennies, he goes a little crazy. Nuts and bolts are easy enough and he decides to upgrade while he’s at it. He researches better material, better protection, and modern armour. And since he’s upgrading, he decides to make three suits.

A week passes in a haze of feverish activity and Rodney almost forgets that this whole thing is the world’s most ridiculous secret until John Sheppard comes down to find him one morning, looking grim.

Rodney’s learning to know that look. “What’s wrong?”

“Elizabeth Weir is asking questions,” Sheppard tells him.

“What? Why?”’

“My credit card,” John fumes, “It’s still paid for by the company.”

Rodney’s intelligent enough to put it together, because Rodney hasn’t taken a lot of trouble to be discreet, what with these being personal purchases. He’d figured John could say he was being paranoid about assassination or something.

“What do we do now?” he asks, planting his hands on his hips.

Sheppard’s restless little movements are pronounces as he licks his lips and shrugs, shifting on the balls of his feet. All mobile, nervous energy.

“We hope she doesn’t figure out what the stuff’s for.”

In the end they tell her, because she gets embroiled in their little scheme when they unmask Neera. Sheppard’s nowhere to be seen on the day the police march in, but Rodney hears all about it in the office gossip.

“I heard her say she would never talk,” someone whispers.

“I know. I heard that too. She said she’d take her chances in jail but it wasn’t worth her life to say another word.”

Rodney sees David Sheppard gesticulating wildly at the head of security for Sheppard-West Building. The boss doesn’t look too happy and Rodney supposes he isn’t, what with his PA turning out to be a commercial spy and selling dangerous secrets right out from under their noses.

The police come to see him, and Sergeant Lorne asks him all kinds of questions about his work, his research, and access to both.

“Did they tell you what this place was, Lieutenant?” Rodney snaps.

“Mostly they said Research and Development,” Lorne sighs, “I tend to take people at face-value for these things.”

“It may say that on the door but what this place really is, is a dead end. That was made very clear to me when they sent me down here.”

Lorne eyes him with thinly veiled dislike. “I can’t think why.”

But for all that Lorne dislikes him, the man is scrupulously fair, and once Rodney fails to answer anything to his satisfaction – or does answer to his satisfaction entirely by accident – he goes away.

With that meeting, Rodney realises that he’s now a collaborator, and not just because he hasn’t told the police what he knows but because he’s actively lied to them. He knows what’s been going on; he helped Sheppard find out. He offered Sheppard his help. Sitting in boxes in the corner of his lab is equipment he’s using to make protective armour for Sheppard and Teyla and Ford, with the full knowledge that the three of them are going to go back out there and involve themselves in things the police would prefer they left to the professionals.

Rodney has to take a few minutes while the panic of being on the wrong side of the law passes him by.

Though, he tells himself, it’s not like he’s actually a criminal.

“Technically, we’re all criminals,” Ford tells him, “We’re taking the law into our own hands. Deciding justice for ourselves.”

“You’re a police officer,” Rodney says, “If that’s what you believe, how do you, you know, persuade yourself it’s the right thing to do?”

It’s Teyla who answers. Teyla who sits down and says, “Have you heard of the Wraith?”

Rodney can honestly say he never has.

Teyla’s quick half-smile is sad. “Then you have been lucky. The Wraith are a gang that have made the lives of thousands of people miserable for decades now. We live in fear of them. We try to fight and they break us."     

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“I’m betting there’s a ton of gangs you’ve never heard of, Doc,” Ford points out.

“That’s true. I don’t keep up with the news on gang warfare.”

“That’s because you don’t have to.”

“Aiden is right. For many people in this City, the death and violence doesn’t exist. We don’t know why it is, but if you look around, you notice that for the people on the streets – the poor, the disadvantaged; their lives are controlled by fear. That is what the Wraith do. They prey on those who cannot fight back, leaving nothing behind.”

It all sounds like a bad joke but Teyla’s voice carries a quiet authority. Rodney swallows thickly and darts a look between Ford, who looks serious, and Teyla, who looks implacable, and he’s attacked by the eternal doubt about whether he really wants to be involved.

He considers backing out. Distancing himself. He could make the suits – finish what he said he’d do – and then he could say he’s had enough.

But then Sheppard gets injured.

Of all people, Elizabeth calls him at five in the morning, and Rodney’s half-asleep when he hears, “John’s injured.”

Rodney wakes all the way up. “What? Elizabeth?”

“I’ll explain later, Rodney. Can you get here?”

“Of course,” he says.

He goes without thinking, because Elizabeth’s technically his boss and because he’s mildly concerned. He drives with half his mind focused on where the suit went wrong. He presumes that Elizabeth calls him because she doesn’t know who else to call, but then she gestures to the medical kit and to Sheppard, who’s stretched out on the couch with his eyes closed, looking like death warmed over.

“I’m not a medical doctor,” Rodney protests.

“Well, you seem to know a lot about medical procedures,” Elizabeth says.

The fact that her reasoning is so illogical alerts Rodney to the fact that Elizabeth is probably panicking wildly, is distracted, and is deeply, deeply worried.

“I have allergies,” Rodney snaps, “I don’t go out and get shot. How did he get shot, by the way?”

Elizabeth compresses her lips, hands on her hips and eyes searching, like she’s not sure how much to tell him.

Rodney rolls his eyes hard. “Elizabeth, I probably know more about his stupid crusade to do the right thing than you do. More than I want to, actually. So if you could...”

“... damn Wraith jumped me,” John says unexpectedly.

Rodney jumps.

Sheppard’s still grey-looking but his eyes are open and clear even if his upper lip draws back with a wince of pain as he sits up.

Once again, he’s completely still.

“Ford got word more of the MP7s were shipping in today. We went in to take a look.” John hunches over suddenly, hand going to his shoulder. “Damn.” The word is breathy, long-drawn-out, and so soft Rodney only hears it because he’s watching John Sheppard’s mouth move.

“If Ford knew, why didn’t the police do something?” Elizabeth asks, “Organise a raid or-or whatever it is they do?”

“They did. Ford spoke to his captain, but we needed evidence. That’s what we’ve been trying to do. Get some evidence.”

“Did you get any?” Rodney asks.

John shoots him a disbelieving stare and raises his eyebrows in pointed reminder, hand still protectively cupping his shoulder.

“Oh, right. Well, why did you engage the Wraith?”

“I didn’t, Rodney. He engaged me.”

“You don’t tell stories very well, do you?”

John sighs. “Look, the police were coming but the unloading started way too early. Maybe it was a tip-off. We don’t know. So we went in, ran a little interference. Nothing major. Teyla took out a couple of guards along the perimeter and Ford set off an explosion in a car.”

Elizabeth makes a strangled sound.

John looks up. “No one was hurt. I made sure of that.”

Rodney privately thinks that he wouldn’t mind bad guys getting hurt. If the MP7 does what he remembers it’s supposed to do, anyone bringing in crates of that stuff for the mob deserves to get shot.

“Wasn’t enough,” John rasps, “Then the cops got there.”

“I thought you said...”

“I don’t know how or why, Rodney. I just know they did. Then the Wraith joined in. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen a gang like that.”

“Do Air Force captains usually know much about gangs?”

“Ex-Air Force Majors,” Sheppard corrects, “Don’t. But I mean it, these guys were different. Looked different. And they used some strange hand thing. Stabbed it right into people’s chests.” He makes a weak, quickly aborted gesture with the hand at the end of his injured arm.

Rodney blinks and looks at Elizabeth. He knows he looks scared. It’s mostly because he is. She, on the other hand, looks scared and determined. There’s a sudden fire in her eyes that gives him a bad feeling.

“They got Captain Sumner and three others. Ford’s at the station dealing with the chaos. They called all off-duty uniforms back in for tonight. Anyway, it was his tip-off.”

“They can’t suspect Ford.”

“They don’t. But it was his tip-off and they want his informant.”

“Oh. Where’s Teyla?” Rodney asks, looking around like she might materialise.

It turns out that Teyla’s gone for a doctor she knows and trusts, and Rodney thinks it’s entirely fitting that it turns out to be Beckett. His GP looks as astounded to see him as he isn’t.

“Carson,” Rodney sighs, “Join the madhouse.”

Carson takes in the scene over five confused moments, but his attention zooms in on John Sheppard’s shoulder and that takes care of what he’s going to tackle first.

“Right,” he says, businesslike, “Shirt off, son. I’ll need to take a look at that.”

Sheppard’s facial muscles are suddenly slack, his expression vacuous and highly pained, and he lets out little hisses and yelps as the material peels away from the clotting wound.

From nowhere, Rodney can smell spilled alcohol.

“Wee accident, then, I take it?” Carson asks disapprovingly.

“That’ll teach me to tackle late night intruders on my own,” John slurs, “Dropped the damn gun when I saw it was a ... friend.”

His eyes are on Elizabeth, sheepish, feeble grin in place, and Rodney blinks. Elizabeth looks surprised for a second and then seems to be trying not to laugh.

Rodney doesn’t get it. His brain calculates trajectory and velocity and angle and it doesn’t seem possible that John Sheppard managed to shoot himself in the shoulder by dropping the gun to the floor.

Teyla’s presence by his shoulder is silent and soothing. Her dark skin glows with sweat and her hair is in wisps around her face, but her expression is serene.

“Where’s the suit?” Rodney suddenly blurts out in a low undertone.

Teyla says, “He wasn't wearing it. Aiden's left it upstairs.”

“Why did he call Elizabeth?” Rodney asks.

“I don’t know,” Teyla says.

Rodney’s betting she didn’t ask. The way she’s looking at Sheppard says she chooses to trust and follow. For now. Until she feels she shouldn’t.

The day she thinks she shouldn’t will not be today.

Rodney takes a seat across from the couch and looks around. Four people, all with different opinions and attitudes and strengths, all gathered together around one man. One possibly insane man. But a man who is, for reasons unknown, putting his own life on the line to save them all from dangers Rodney’s never even known existed.

Sitting down in the chair, he spots the open bottle of scotch just visible under the couch, alcohol soaking into the carpet, and when he looks up, Carson’s focused on the wound, and Sheppard’s eyes are watchful and clear, his mouth temporarily grim.

Rodney holds that intent gaze for five very long seconds and then Sheppard nods. Once. And that says everything.


End file.
